Regular readers will know that I am a particular fan of Michael Apted’s “Seven Up” documentary film series that has followed the lives of a collection of English school children from the age of seven in 1964 until the present time, visiting them once every seven years. So I was instantly drawn in by this article by Joshua Wolf Shenk in the latest issue of The Atlantic, which chronicles a longitudinal study begun at Harvard in the early 1940s to follow a number of undergraduates throughout their entire lives to see if the keys to a life of happiness and fulfillment could be quantified.
The Grant Study, so titled because its original funding sponsor was the department store magnate W. T Grant, carefully selected undergraduates who were judged to be “normal”, “well-adjusted”, and likely to live long, happy, successful lives. Two hundred and sixty-eight students were selected, among them the young John F. Kennedy, and for over 70 years they have been periodically contacted to follow the events of their lives, analyzed for health and physical condition, and occasionally written about in books and scholarly journals. The subjects have had their anonymity protected for all these years except in cases where they publicly identified themselves (such as journalist Ben Bradlee), or, in the case of JFK, where it was no longer possible to disguise his identity.
A complaint that a number of the subjects in Apted’s films have made over the years is that he has seemed to jump to conclusions about the paths of their lives, or has passed judgment on their choices in life, but when I read this article I could only find myself thinking how little Apted projected onto his subjects compared to the enormous set of assumptions and judgments imposed on the subjects of the Grant Study. After all, we are talking about the quintessential generation of “Harvard Men” who were taken into the university to be shaped and molded into leaders, hardened in the crucible of the Second World War, and handed the reins of the entire world for half a century. Surely these men would be the Best and the Brightest the world could ever offer, and of course their lives would unfold smoothly and naturally into profound happiness, fulfillment, and serve as paragons that everyone could emulate to live a long, happy, successful life. No pressure there at all.
While many of the men in the study did indeed go on to lives of wealth and power, what comes out of the narratives that have been written is that there IS no single path, no eluctible set of behaviors, characteristics, or experiences that can guarantee a golden road from start to finish. Men who were expected to excel in life turned to drink, failed to achieve successful relationships, never lived up to their potential. Others who were less assuming sometimes achieved personal happiness but never attained status in their working lives. A few even got the whole magilla — fame, riches, love — only to be plagued with self-doubt at the end of their lives as to what good it all was for.
The article is absolutely fascinating if you’re at all interested in stuff like this. Very little has ever been divulged publicly about the study other than one book by the study’s present director, George Vaillant (who is also profiled in depth in the Atlantic article). Now, though, as the remaining subjects are reaching the ends of their lives, the study is headed for its conclusion, and with luck there will be more information released and much more written about the study.
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